A variety of different types of hand-held firearms exist such as conventional handguns and compressed gas powered guns. These firearms discharge a variety of different types of projectiles including, for example, bullets, pellets, and frangible marking projectiles sometimes referred to as "paint balls". Typically, a hand held firearm employs a longitudinally extending barrel, a frame member and a downwardly depending trigger arrangement.
Conventional hand-held firearms also have a downwardly extending handle or grip which is either angled toward the rear of the weapon (the end of the firearm opposite the open end of the barrel from which the projectile is expelled) or is perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the barrel. One problem with conventional hand-held weapons having such handle arrangements is that their handles or grips can make them awkward to manipulate including to hold steady and to aim. For example, in order to optimize aiming of a hand-held weapon it is often desirable for a user to position the firearm as close as possible to his or her eyes. With conventional hand-held weapons, however, this requires a very awkward arm position which leads to uncomfortable and unstable positioning of the weapon with a resultant decrease in firing accuracy.